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Abstract

Microsatellite markers remain an important tool for ecological and evolutionary research, but are unavailable for many non-model organisms. One such organism with rare ecological and evolutionary features is the epizoic barnacle Chelonibia testudinaria (Linnaeus, 1758). Chelonibia testudinaria appears to be a host generalist, and has a unusual sexual system, androdioecy. Genetic studies on host specificity and mating behavior are impeded by the lack of fine-scale, highly variable markers. In the present study, we discovered thousands of new microsatellite loci from next-generation sequencing data, and characterized 12 loci thoroughly. We conclude that 11 of these loci will be useful markers in future ecological and evolutionary studies on C. testudinaria.

Author Comment

I included edits of my co-authors.

Supplemental Information

Microsatellite genotypes for each individual with individual ID and collection date

John P Wares conceived and designed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.

Field Study Permissions

The following information was supplied relating to field study approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):

I sampled under the sampling permit of the University of Georgia Marine Institute.

DNA Deposition

The following information was supplied regarding the deposition of DNA sequences:

GenBank SRA, reads will be deposited prior to publication

Data Deposition

The following information was supplied regarding data availability:

We will provide the data set as supplementary information.

Funding

We would like to acknowledge our funding sources, the National Science Foundation (NSF-OCE No. 1029526) and the University of Georgia Department of Genetics Hightower Award. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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